Right now in the news the Liberal Party of Canada is working hard to make giant novelty cheques dirty. Whenever governments spend money, they have traditionally had a big novelty cheque created which the local politicians and the representatives of those receiving the money have a photo op. This has been customary for decades or even longer.
Yet now that they have demanded billions on infrastructure spending, I find it completely ridiculous that the Liberals feel the photo ops are abuse of tax dollars for partisan purposes. Below is a snippit from the National Post from Saturday February 19th, 2000.
OTTAWA and QUEBEC CITY – Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, yesterday said his government had nothing to apologize for in seeking to reap maximum partisan political benefit from disbursing $1-billion worth of federal job grants across Canada each year.
He had always made sure since taking power in October, 1993, that voters were left in no doubt that it was his Liberals who were distributing such grants, he said.
“Listen,” he added, “we are the government … I don’t see why we can’t try to get credit for what we do. I hope we do so. There is nothing to be ashamed in that.”
Thanks to Stephen Taylor for digging this one up.
Now correct me if I am wrong but was Jean Chretien not a Liberal? The fact that the Liberals didn’t seem to mind mind “cashing in” on the photo ops when they were in power just makes them look like hypocrites now that the shoe is on the other foot.